eans pleased with the match which her niece Mary Lowther was
proposing to herself. Everything seemed to show that Captain Marrable
was a most undesirable person.

When he reached the station at Loring it was incumbent on him to go
somewhither at once. He must provide for himself for the night. He
found two omnibuses at the station, and two inn servants competing
with great ardour for his carpet bag. There were the Dragon and the
Bull fighting for him. The Bull in the Lowtown was commercial and
prosperous. The Dragon at Uphill was aristocratic, devoted to county
purposes, and rather hard set to keep its jaws open and its tail
flying. Prosperity is always becoming more prosperous, and the
allurements of the Bull prevailed. "Are you a going to rob the gent
of his walise?" said the indignant Boots of the Bull as he rescued
Mr. Gilmore's property from the hands of his natural enemy, as soon
as he had secured the entrance of Mr. Gilmore into his own vehicle.
Had Mr. Gilmore known that the Dragon was next door but one to Miss
Marrable's house, and that the Bull was nearly equally contiguous
to that in which Captain Marrable was residing, his choice probably
would not have been altered. In such cases, the knight who is to be
the deliverer desires above all things that he may be near to his
enemy.

He was shown up to a bedroom, and then ushered into the commercial
room of the house. Loring, though it does a very pretty trade as a
small town, and now has for some years been regarded as a thriving
place in its degree, is not of such importance in the way of business
as to support a commercial inn of the first class. At such houses the
commercial room is as much closed against the uninitiated as is a
first-class club in London. In such rooms a non-commercial man would
be almost as much astray as is a non-broker in Capel Court, or an
attorney in a bar mess-room. At the Bull things were a little mixed.
The very fact that the words "Commercial Room" were painted on the
door proved to those who understood such matters that there was a
doubt in the case. They had no coffee room at the Bull, and strangers
who came that way were of necessity shown into that in which the
gentlemen of the road were wont to relax themselves. Certain
commercial laws are maintained in such apartments. Cigars are not
allowed before nine o'clock, except upon some distinct arrangement
with the waiter. There is not, as a rule, a regular daily commercial
repast;